Vacation?
by Luddles
Summary: With the weekend off, Genesis plans a camping trip with Angeal and Zack... and subsequently manages to trick Sephiroth into going on the worst vacation of his life.


**Disclaimer: RIIIGHT, as if the entire FFVII compendium belongs to a teenager sitting in her bedroom eating ramen. **

**A/N: The idea for this story came from something else I wrote, **_**100 Ways to Survive SOLDIER**_**. I really wanted to expand upon the prompt 'Vacation', because that one was my personal favorite!**

**So, this is written also as a thank-you to everyone who read and reviewed **_**100 Ways**_**. Hope you enjoy!**

**Vacation?**

"Were you aware," Genesis asked, parrying one of Sephiroth's blows and lunging back with his own, "that we've been given the weekend off?"

Sephiroth snaked his ribbon of a blade between his body and Genesis's sword and brushed him off like he was merely a bothersome pest. "No."

Genesis was quite fond of chatting during their bouts of swordplay, simply in order to disarm Sephiroth so that he could land a hit. Usually, it didn't happen, but Sephiroth was always a little distracted by the redhead's babble. Whenever he accidentally belied such distraction, Genesis would only prattle on louder and more frequently.

As such, he remained steadfast as much as possible. "Well, ShinRa has decided that we deserve it," Genesis replied. He performed an elegant backflip that put him out of Masamune's reach. Sephiroth rolled his eyes and rushed forward again, bringing himself up against Genesis's body, the steel of their blades pressed together and sparking under the friction.

"Any plans?" he asked coolly. Genesis's own tactic worked against him perfectly well.

"Not really," Genesis grunted, obviously struggling against the weight of the larger man pressing down on him. When it came to pure force, Genesis lost against both Sephiroth and Angeal, simply because he was smaller. "Just camping with Angeal and Zack."

Sephiroth knew that there was a kick to his shins imminent, and he twisted out of the way before Genesis could resort to such low tactics. At least Genesis wasn't perturbed enough to knee him in the groin.

"…Sounds… fun?"

It came out like a question, mostly because Sephiroth did not see the appeal in sleeping in a tent when he was neither on a mission nor at war.

"Yeah, I like it," Genesis said, taking Sephiroth's momentary confusion to shoot a burst of fire from the tip of his rapier.

Sephiroth deflected the flames smoothly and they slid out of the way of his body, ruffling his hair as they imploded into the back of the virtual cliff face Sephiroth and Genesis were fighting against. The topography didn't seem to be damaged; that was one of the benefits of virtual reality. Things could be created to be strong enough to withstand the force of two SOLDIERS pummeling it.

"I forget you're a country boy," Sephiroth said, running the fingertips of his right hand along his blade and sending a shockwave that knocked Genesis into a nearby rock formation.

"Yeah… well… it's better than being a prissy, stuck-up city slicker who can't spend a night in the wilderness," Genesis replied, coughing and catching his breath. Before he could retaliate, Sephiroth was against him again, sheer power backing him into the craggy rocks behind.

"A _what_, Genesis?"

"Well, it's not as though you've ever proved otherwise." He was trying to sound nonchalant, but wasn't yet breathing exactly right. Sephiroth could tell Genesis was worried for his life.

Or his pain tolerance, rather, because Sephiroth wouldn't _actually_ kill him.

"I could, though," Sephiroth added thoughtfully, giving Genesis just enough time to push against the flat edge of Masamune that was pressed into his chest. He was forcefully shoved back.

"Fine, come with us if you want," Genesis said, slipping his rapier between himself and Masamune.

Sephiroth supposed that, in hindsight, landing on his backside amidst a virtual canyon due to an explosion with the force of a small bomb from none other than Genesis Rhapsodos was just the beginning. It could only go downhill from there.

The weekend excursion started with Angeal, very awake for so early in the morning and all-too-happy to pile his three best friends into a pickup truck and drive off to a secluded camping ground somewhere. He had an enormous mug of coffee in one hand and the wheel in the other, laughing along with Zack's jokes that weren't even funny. Sephiroth was beginning to wish that _he_ had brought something caffeinated. He was stuck in the backseat, not to mention Genesis snoring on his shoulder. The redhead was not a morning person; all of the Firsts knew it.

That didn't mean he needed to conk out in Sephiroth's personal space bubble, though.

Sephiroth tried to push Genesis off for the third time, and only got his friend's arms wrapped around his waist. Sephiroth groaned and leaned his head back, rolling his eyes.

"Yo, Seph, you okay?" Zack turned and eyed the General, one of his eyebrows quirked.

"…Fine," Sephiroth replied acidly.

"You're not carsick or something, are you?"

"No, Zack, I am not carsick. I am, however, sick of this idiot laying all over me."

Genesis's deep blue eyes snapped open and he glared at Sephiroth for a moment. "I am many things, General, but an idiot is not one of them," he said icily. Before Sephiroth could retort, Genesis plonked his head onto his lap with a sigh and resumed his nap.

Zack peered out the window, watching the highway rolling by and the forest thickening around them. "Are we there yet?"

"Oh, kill me now," Sephiroth groaned.

He was starting to think that this had been a very bad idea.

Unfortunately, turning tail and heading home was a bad idea as well. Genesis would never let him hear the end of it, and if he knew the redhead like he thought he did, Zack wouldn't either. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or rather, between Genesis and the rattling, tiny window in the backseat of a pickup truck.

Zack asked if they were there yet a good ten more times before arrival.

Eventually, Sephiroth threatened to make Zack ride the rest of the way in the truck's bed with the tents and the rest of the luggage, which quieted the youngest man considerably. Genesis woke up a while later, but was still laying on Sephiroth, texting goodness-knew-who on his cell phone and cursing in four different languages when they finally got somewhere there was no cell service. At least no cell service meant that there was no annoying beeping noise every thirty seconds when Genesis's phone received a new text.

There was a dilapidated wooden sign naming the area they were entering as something-or-other National Park. Sephiroth couldn't really read it because the words were so faded.

"Are we…"

"YES, ZACK, WE'RE HERE!" Sephiroth shouted.

Zack pouted and rubbed his ear, pretty sure Sephiroth had blown out his eardrum again. "Geez, Seph, take a chill pill."

There was little time for Sephiroth to reply, because Angeal parked the truck. They were in the middle of a small clearing, finally not moving along the all-too-bumpy road that wasn't really a road at all. Genesis got out of the car and promptly fell on his back in the middle of the clearing, not caring if he was grass-staining his T-shirt. "Ugh, remind me to take something before the ride back, those roads do _not_ agree with my stomach."

Sephiroth supposed he should have been glad Genesis hadn't been sick, but he was more preoccupied with Zack, who had accidentally hit him in the back of the head with a tent pole. "Ow," he said pointedly, wincing.

"Oops, sorry about that one, Sephy."

Now was probably about the time Sephiroth decided that if Zack called him 'Sephy' again, he was going to drown the puppy in the lake. He didn't like any of Zack and Genesis's nicknames, especially not ones that ended in Ys. Or a certain moniker Genesis had come up with after a night of far too many movies that were too corny for their own good and far too little sleep. _That_, however, was the name that shall not be named.

"_Sephiroth_, Zack," Sephiroth corrected, "or anything but Sephy, really."

"What the heck ever, Sexiroth," Genesis said lazily, still lying on the ground while the other three were going about the always-confusing process of setting up the tents.

Tents or not, the name that shall not be named had, in fact, been mentioned, and Sephiroth was very close to kicking Genesis in the head. "Genesis," he asked, voice shaking with pent-up rage, "_what_ did I tell you about calling me that?"

"I don't recall."

Sephiroth kicked him.

Genesis whined and complained and kvetched about it later to Angeal, but Sephiroth was far away and putting himself to good work setting up the tent. Until… it got hot. Really, _really_ hot. If they were somewhere that Genesis's technological devices actually had communication, they might have looked up the weather and noticed the enormous heat wave coming through for the day. Soon enough, though, they all began noticing it anyways.

Well, all except Zack.

It might have had something to do with his hailing from Gongaga, but Zack was basically impervious to heat. Conversely, that cadet from Niebelheim he'd befriended never seemed to mind the cold.

Sephiroth had his shirt off before Genesis could ask if it was hot there or if it was just him. Sephiroth responded by tossing the discarded article of clothing at Genesis's head. The Commander should have counted himself lucky that it wasn't another kick.

That only led to Genesis remarking that Sephiroth never wore a shirt, which _always_ led to interesting discussions. Mostly about Sephiroth being a show-off and Genesis being jealous that he wasn't as attractive as Sephiroth. And the tent still wasn't finished. "I swear, Seph, there's not even anyone here to show off _for_, why do you feel the need to go around half-naked?"

Sephiroth rounded on Genesis, brandishing a tent pole that he jabbed at the redhead's chest. "Had you not noticed," he began, "it is ninety-some degrees out here and I am not Zack, who tolerates it indefinitely! Also, have you even _noticed_ the humidity?"

It was awfully humid; Sephiroth's hair was sticking on his back and he could feel himself dripping in sweat. As soon as the tent was set up, he was going inside and changing into shorts, whether he liked wearing them or not.

If memory served, Genesis wasn't fond of shorts either, but he seemed to have the foresight that it would be abnormally hot.

"Yes," Genesis replied exasperatedly, gesturing towards his sweat-soaked T-shirt, "which is why you all need to finish the stupid tent so we can all change and go swimming!"

"Well maybe if you would _help_ us, we could actually get something _done_!"

Sephiroth's hysterical shriek was punctuated by a roll of thunder in the distance and followed by a virtual downpour.

Both SOLDIERS just stared at each other as they were both soaked within seconds.

"Hm," Zack said, glancing up at the dark sky above them. "Good thing we got the tent finished."

The dripping foursome dragged themselves inside the tent, Genesis finally uncovering the towels and tossing them out. They all changed into dry clothes, tossing the wet ones into a plastic bag Angeal had brought for such a situation. The tent was spacious, something the taller Firsts were quite glad for. The tip of Zack's spikes brushed the top of it when he stood, but other than that, they all had enough room.

It made sense, after all, they were sleeping in a six-man tent.

Not that any of them would have wanted to fit six people in it.

Sephiroth gave his bedraggled hair a withering look, then shot the same expression at Genesis. "Did you cool off a little?" Genesis asked. Sephiroth wanted to shoot Genesis a snarky reply or even throw something at him, but all he could do was give him a groan and a nod.

"Not the way I intended…"

The thunderstorm lasted a good hour, during which Zack started up a game of Go Fish that he continuously won. Genesis accused him of cheating multiple times, but there was no actual evidence that Zack really wasn't playing by the rules. Sephiroth, they discovered, had an awful poker face and always grinned maniacally when he knew someone else had a card that he did as well. Genesis called him out on it each time and he just rolled his eyes, still smirking.

Zack eventually unearthed a bag of potato chips and a few sodas from one of his bags. He ate most of them, but shared whenever Angeal managed to tug them away from him. In the end, it was surprising there was any food at all left over.

Eventually, all of them fell asleep, each abandoning the cards in turn in favor of their own sleeping bags. Zack and Genesis were the only ones left in the end, and Sephiroth was having more than a little trouble sleeping with them talking.

"Go fish," Zack told Genesis.

"No way! I swear you just asked me if I had any threes, how could you not have one!"

"I meant to say twos, okay!"

"No, I think you're cheating."

"I'm _not_!"

Sephiroth groped around in the semi-darkness for anything he could throw at the two of them. He couldn't see much, because Genesis's body was blocking most of the light from the small lantern sitting in between him and Zack. Even still, moments later, he found Zack's pillow and tossed it. There was a satisfying thump as it hit the back of Genesis's head and a plop as it fell back onto the ground, and Sephiroth smirked, snuggling back into his blankets, proud that he had managed to silence the noisiest of his friends.

"I think he wants us to go to bed," Zack observed, collecting all of the cards pooled on the floor and shuffling them back into their box.

"Agreed," Genesis said, stepping over Sephiroth and to his sleeping bag, careful to smack Sephiroth with the pillow on the way there. Payback was sweet.

Sephiroth couldn't really have cared less, though. As long as Genesis was quiet.

The blissful silence didn't last for long. It only felt like minutes later, and Sephiroth had nearly slipped into sleep, but Zack was snoring loudly on his right side. He groaned and rolled onto his stomach, burying his head under his pillow. There was no use in trying to wake Zack, he slept like a log. Actually, all of the Firsts did, except for Sephiroth, which Sephiroth found to be entirely unfair.

That, coupled with the fact that Angeal snored, Genesis talked in his sleep, and Zack did both almost made Sephiroth want to go down to the labs and retrieve some of the medicine supposedly used to cure insomnia.

His hatred of Hojo kept him away from there, though, and he was stuck with his noisy companions.

Tonight wasn't so bad, though, Zack was quieting down already. He had rolled onto his side, which usually solved the problem, and Genesis wasn't saying much of anything. Angeal was already sleeping on his side, his broad back facing the rest of them. At least he wasn't snoring as well.

The night seemed to last an eternity. Between Zack snoring an occasionally mumbling, Angeal, who began snoring at some point, and Genesis, who, if Sephiroth was not mistaken, kept creeping closer every hour. He didn't even want to think about exactly how bumpy the ground underneath the tent was. Eventually, he drifted off into restless sleep, dreaming that he was back home in his king-sized bed with everything completely and perfectly quiet.

It had to be one in the morning when Sephiroth woke to the little rasping sound of the zipper on his sleeping bag being slowly pulled down. He pulled his sleepy eyes open, just in time to see a mop of red hair in front of them. Genesis was crawling into his sleeping bag and pulling his own overtop of both of them. "Gen… get out," Sephiroth mumbled sleepily, nudging Genesis's shoulder. That only got him an arm around his torso. Genesis hummed softly and pulled Sephiroth closer, using him like an enormous teddy bear.

Sephiroth decided he could deal with this.

The next time Sephiroth woke, it was still dark out, but much quieter. It seemed like all the fauna that had been causing nearly as much a racket as Zack himself had silenced itself. The air was still… too still. Sephiroth wasn't sure what had woken him, but he felt a prickling in the back of his neck like something was dreadfully wrong.

Suddenly, something was rustling in the underbrush, and Sephiroth looked around, nudging Genesis in the shoulder. "Genesis. Wake up," he hissed. Genesis was unfortunately as heavy a sleeper as the rest of the Firsts, and he was especially dreadful when woken out of a deep sleep. Sephiroth wouldn't be surprised if Genesis punched him if he actually did wake.

Something poked the tent flap open and Sephiroth sat bolt upright, shoving Genesis off of him. The redhead still did not wake up, he just mumbled in his sleep and wrapped his arms around Sephiroth's waist. A nose was easing its way inside the tent, and then a head. It was furry, snuffling around in the darkness and shuffling further inside.

A grizzly bear three times the size of Angeal was poking its nose into the bag of chips Zack had left open on the floor of the tent.

The first thought that ran through Sephiroth's head was that he was absolutely going to kill Zack Fair.

But after that, he hit Genesis in the shoulder, hard.

"What in the name of… Sephiroth? What the…"

Genesis screamed loud enough to wake both of the men still sleeping through the bear attack.

"Why is there a bear in here?" Zack mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes. He was still quite rational despite the fact that there was a wild animal in their tent, eating his food.

"It's your fault, Zack!" Angeal snapped.

"Just be quiet… maybe it'll leave after it eats the chips," Sephiroth suggested. Genesis was slowly reaching for his sword, which was lying at the far end of the tent. None of the Firsts had felt safe without their weapons, even on a simple camping trip, and Genesis was particularly anal about keeping his rapier within reach at all time.

The blade hissed against one of the tiny metal washers keeping the tent intact. It was a minute noise, one which none of the SOLDIERs would have heard without their enhancements. But it was enough to make the bear turn and roar at Genesis. The commander backed up in fright until his back was against canvas, his free hand fisting in the sheets and Sephiroth's hair. "Seph… get it out of here…"

"What, you think I know what I'm doing?" Sephiroth whispered, backing up as well and tugging his hair out of Genesis's grasp. Ever since it was just him in Banora with Angeal, Genesis had a habit of grabbing the nearest thing to him whenever he was afraid. Sephiroth was not fond of that being his hair.

Zack was the first one to stand. He slowly approached the animal, holding up his arms, but as soon as he got close to it, he ducked around it out and out the tent. The bear, no longer satisfied with the chips, turned to chase Zack instead. The rest of the Firsts scrambled to their feet and dashed after him. "Angeal, your puppy's going to be killed!" Genesis spat. Angeal did not reply, because he was already out of the tent and chasing down Zack.

Sephiroth knew that bears were protective animals, and that mother bears would defend their young to the death.

That was why they all called Angeal a mama bear sometimes.

When they found Zack and the bear, they were facing each other, Zack still with his arms held high, slowly backing away from it. He was talking, actually rambling gibberish about ridiculous things. He may or may not have been telling the bear about how creepy Sephiroth's fangirls were. But, strangely enough, it was working. The bear was no longer running after him, it had slowed and was even backing off a little. Zack was not a small man by any standard; he was about the same size as Sephiroth and second only to Angeal in manners of sheer largeness.

In basic, he seemed intimidating enough.

Unfortunately for Zack, his luck did not last long. The bear decided it wasn't really very scared of the young man, and it began lumbering toward him again. When it leapt at him, Zack dropped to the ground with a loud, "get down!"

The others did not argue.

Even though he was lying on the ground, Sephiroth was still watching Zack warily. The bear was nosing him, poking at his limp form. Sephiroth could hear Angeal's breathing behind him—until it stopped.

That was when Sephiroth knew Angeal was terrified.

It seemed like ages before the bear backed off, but it finally trudged back into the woods. Sephiroth heard a noisy sigh of relief from behind himself, but they all remained on the ground for a little longer. When Zack stood, the others joined him.

Angeal stalked across the clearing at hit Zack across the face. "I told you not to leave food lying around!" he shouted. Sephiroth and Genesis looked at each other and winced. They knew the feeling of Angeal's ire all too well. He made one undeniably guilty for everything they'd done, even if all ended well. With Angeal, all was not well that ended well.

"What! I just _fended off a bear attack_, Angeal!"

Apparently Zack had not gotten that yet.

"You… you just scared ten years off my life!"

Sephiroth wasn't sure whether to expect Angeal to hit Zack again or hug him, but thankfully for Zack, he got the latter.

The General just groaned and returned to the tent.

All of them eventually collapsed in a heap of blankets in the center of the tent. Sephiroth didn't even care that he was on the bottom of the pile, as long as he got a good four hours of sleep with no noise and no wild animals. Everything was blissfully quiet for the waning hours of the night, and Sephiroth was beginning to think that maybe camping wasn't so bad after all.

He woke with Genesis's head on his stomach and one of the commander's arms thrown over his leg. Zack was sleeping completely across Sephiroth's chest, with Angeal on top of _him_.

Sephiroth was rested, just suffocating.

Not to mention immobilized.

"Zack," he whispered, trying to get rid of the largest threat to his ribcage. The young man just snored loudly, not a very good indication of any threat being removed. Sephiroth groaned, shoving at Zack's arm. "Zack, get off of me!"

Zack mumbled something in his sleep, then groaned and rolled onto his side, more sharply squashing Sephiroth. "Seph…" he whined, as if he was telling the General to shut it and let him have five more minutes.

Five minutes which Sephiroth would not allow him to have.

When Sephiroth realized that trying to move Zack was futile, he kicked Angeal's legs, the only thing he could reach on the Commander. Technically, he could shake Genesis off as well if Zack would just move. Angeal grunted and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He grinned when he looked down at a very disgruntled-looking Sephiroth. "Good morning to you too," he joked, standing and moving to get a fire started outside. It was still a little cool, the sun not yet burning the air yet. The humidity from yesterday was not entirely gone, but it wasn't unbearable.

Sephiroth was quite uncomfortable anyways, but that was because of the overlarge puppy of a man lying directly on top of his lungs. "Angeal, get back here and get him off of me!"

Sephiroth slapped a hand to his mouth when he realized he sounded exactly like Genesis when he was whining.

The smell of coffee was probably what woke Genesis, who laughed outright at Sephiroth and Zack. Unlike Angeal, he helped Sephiroth out of his current state, fully aware of what it was like to have a very heavy man dead asleep on him. Zack had rolled onto all of them at one point or another. "Up you go, puppy…" Genesis tugged on one of Zack's arms and pulled him up and off of Sephiroth, who took a deep breath and gave Genesis a grateful nod.

Zack was waking up little by little, rubbing his eyes sleepily and yawning. "'Mornin…" he drawled, running his fingers through his hair and further rumpling his already-messy spikes. Genesis had already left the tent in search of coffee, the only substance guaranteed to wake him up. Sephiroth was highly considering following him, but he decided to change into a clean black T-shirt and jeans and pull his ridiculously long hair up into a ponytail before doing so.

There was something about sitting around a campfire with the sun just barely above the horizon, dew still on the ground, and drinking what was probably the best coffee he'd ever had that made Sephiroth entirely forget the previous night's chaos. He even ignored the crumpled remnants of Zack's bear-bait strewn across their campsite in favor of the mug in his hands. Genesis was sitting next to him, looking a little sleepy but probably less tired than Sephiroth was. It had been a long night, and it made Sephiroth very glad that this camping trip was ending today.

All they had to do now was disassemble the campsite and pack up, endure the long road back to Midgar, and then crash in their own beds after a long shower so they would all be ready for work the next day.

Which was why Sephiroth was very confused when Angeal started driving in a different direction than the road home.

"Where the heck are we going?" he asked, glancing out the window. Yes, they were definitely heading deeper into the woods instead of towards the highway.

"I wanted to go fishing before we head home. It's still early, after all, and it's been a while since I have," Angeal said, making a particularly sharp turn that sent Genesis rolling across the backseat and into Sephiroth's lap. That's what he got for not wearing a seatbelt.

"Fish?"

Sephiroth didn't really like fish. The only way he appreciated them was cooked and on his plate. He especially didn't like wriggling, slimy things that came out of the water. Usually, he met such creatures at swordpoint, and he was ridding the depths of the slums from an infestation of them. Fishing did not sound like his cup of tea.

It turned out that he was completely right. Apparently, fishing required skewering worms on the end of hooks and tossing them into the water, which Sephiroth found positively _medieval. _The others didn't mind, except Genesis, who asked Angeal to bait his hook for him. Angeal only laughed and said that years of being in the army hadn't really changed Genesis at all if he still couldn't stab a worm with a fishhook.

Zack seemed quite accustomed to it, and explained that he went fishing in the depths of the rainforest ever since he was a child.

Well, if Zack, who could be more than a little clumsy and accident-prone, could do this as a child, Sephiroth could most certainly catch a fish.

Except… no one bothered to explain to him that fishhooks could catch on more things than fishes' mouths. Like hair, for instance. And that time Zack's cousin had accidentally snagged one in his ear. That had been a bad one. More importantly, a not-forewarned Sephiroth accidentally tangled the fishing line in his hair when he tried to cast his hook.

Genesis jumped and dropped the fish he'd been holding when Sephiroth screamed, whirling around to stare open-mouthed at the General. "How… did you manage to do that!"

There was at least two feet of fishing line ensnared in Sephiroth's silvery hair, tangling the end of it into an enormous knot. "I don't know," Sephiroth groaned, massaging his temples as Angeal procured a pair of scissors and cut the line off so that there was no longer a fishing rod hanging from Sephiroth's hair. He snipped the hook off as well, fairly certain that if Sephiroth didn't like putting the worm on the hook, he wasn't going to like having both of them in his hair.

Then, Angeal and Zack both escaped, leaving Genesis to disentangle the rest of the fishing line.

It was a good half an hour before the General and the Commander returned, both looking a little worse for wear. Sephiroth looked especially exhausted and ragged, and Angeal decided it was probably best to cut their fishing trip short. They began the drive home with Zack snoring in the front seat and Sephiroth and Genesis collapsed on each other in the back. Sephiroth didn't even care about his personal space anymore. He didn't care that the backwoods roads were jolting them around every two seconds and that Genesis's elbow had landed in his kidney on more than one of the violent turns. He didn't even protest when Angeal turned the radio to his favorite country music station.

All he knew was that he was _never_ going camping again.


End file.
